


Raven

by SweetSorcery



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, First Time, Het and Slash, Kissing, M/M, Obsession, Sappy, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:33:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetSorcery/pseuds/SweetSorcery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedric has an obsession. He never expected it to be so much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raven

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All canon referred to within belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, Warner Bros. Inc., and possibly others. Non-canon bits were created for non-profit, non-infringement entertainment.
> 
> Archiving: Absolutely nowhere please, not even in translated form.
> 
> Author's Notes: This was written in December 2005. And I still haven't decided whether it's too flowery and out there for its own good or not. :)  
> (Please note that I may lock my explicit stories to registered users only, once they've been up for a bit.)
> 
> Warnings: Harry is underage, but this is only slightly adult around the ages. The het content is negligible and insignificant.

_In most cultures, the raven symbolises affection, wisdom, hope, longevity or death. In alchemy, it represents change and the advanced soul dying to this world._

Cedric Diggory had always loved black hair. He loved how it caught the light and absorbed it, like an endless universe without stars. When he saw black hair, he wanted to slide his fingers through it and drown in the sensation.

The first person Cedric kissed was Roger Davies. Roger's black hair caught his eye in the middle of a Transfigurations lesson with Ravenclaw, and Cedric felt ridiculous, because he wished he could transfigure himself into a comb or a brush - anything which would be allowed to touch Roger's beautiful hair.

As it turned out, he didn't need to transfigure into anything other than what he was - the sweetest, most handsome boy at Hogwarts. Roger noticed his longing glances soon enough, and between Charms and Herbology on a sunny Thursday morning, Roger fell a few steps behind the rest of his classmates when he spotted Cedric's class walking the other way. He knew Cedric would follow his example, and when he did, Roger pulled the unresisting Hufflepuff behind an ivy-covered pillar in the courtyard. While the others continued on to the greenhouses, Roger smiled at him, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him.

It was sweet but brief. By the time Cedric dropped his school bag and buried his fingers in Roger's hair, it was already over, and he felt cheated. Neither of them ever spoke of it again.

* * *

Cedric excelled at Potions to a point where even Severus Snape was impressed. Cedric was an example to the rest of Hufflepuff, for whom Snape had nothing but contempt and a range of unflattering names. Cedric never spoiled a single potion.

At least not until a notable double Potions class with Slytherin during which Professor Snape pointed out to his own house that they should at least _attempt_ to work as meticulously as Mr Diggory.

Cedric blinked up at Snape, who had come to stand beside him, and a faint glint of light from the small fire below his cauldron was caught and swallowed up in the black silk of Snape's hair. Cedric blushed deeply, eyes fixed on Snape's, and failed to notice that his Daydream Potion was about to bubble over onto his desk.

For a moment, neither did Snape, who returned Cedric's gaze with equal intensity. Only when a few Slytherins snickered at the badly timed potions mishap on the heels of such an outrageous compliment did Snape snap into action. With a quick flick of his wand and a muttered spell, he banished Cedric's potion and sent the entire cauldron across the room to crash into the large, heatproof sink. The potion would have been harmless, but it would have stained the desk purple forever.

"You will stay after class, Mr Diggory," Snape said sternly, then strode to the front of the room in a displeased swirl of robes.

Cedric, folding his hands in his lap, anticipated at the very least a detention and the inevitable loss of house points. It would be a first for him, and he was embarrassed and annoyed with himself. He attempted to follow the rest of the lesson to the best of his abilities, but his concentration continued to waver. Snape kept looking at him; there was no clearly identifiable emotion there, and that, with Severus Snape, was enough to worry any student.

Once the classroom had cleared, Snape walked towards Cedric, but stopped a few desks away. "Do you have another class right now, Mr Diggory?"

Cedric shook his head. "No, sir."

"Then follow me." Snape turned and swept from the room.

Cedric hurriedly rose and, clutching his bag, trailed behind Snape, biting his lip and trying hard not to reach out and touch the curtain of shoulder-long black hair swaying slightly with each step his teacher took.

They moved into the adjoining smaller room with a single desk and cauldron placed upon it, set up and ready for Snape's frequently handed out detentions.

"You will brew today's potion again," Snape instructed. "I assume you have noted down the list of ingredients?"

Cedric nodded, trying hard to avert his eyes from Snape. He bent down to retrieve his parchment from his bag and placed it on the desk. Of course, it did not remain unrolled; the curled edges snapped back together into a roll immediately. He swore softly under his breath.

Snape gave a snort somewhere to his left. "You might want to place something on the edges to hold it open," he suggested dryly.

"Oh. I… Of course. Sorry, Professor Snape." Cedric flushed to the roots of his hair. While he was still stupidly trying to think of something in his bag he could use as a weight, Snape strode to a storage shelf and retrieved a lodestone and a crystal paperweight; he placed both on opposite corners of Cedric's parchment.

"Thank you, professor."

Snape snickered. "Get to work, Mr Diggory."

"Right away, sir." Cedric took a deep breath, wishing that Snape would take his distracting hair away so he could concentrate.

Instead, Snape hovered nearby, moving jars between shelves. But as Cedric could tell from the prickling feeling between his shoulder blades, he was predominantly watching his student.

Cedric knew he was hyperventilating but was unable to stop it. The urge to turn around and reach out to touch his newest obsession was nearly overwhelming. Only the fear of losing a year's supply of house points prevented such foolishness. Instead, he chopped and diced his ingredients with trembling hands, trying not to add finely sliced Hufflepuff fingers, and dropped them into the cauldron one by one, keeping a careful eye on the wall clock.

Suddenly, Snape was at his shoulder, looking over it into the cauldron. "Well, this looks promising at least." He turned his head and frowned when he saw the pale, sweat-beaded face before him. "If you're about to faint, Mr Diggory, stand back from the cauldron. I'll not have this entire room turned purple!"

Cedric jolted, dropping his ladle beside the cauldron and taking a hasty step away. Not back, as Snape had suggested, because he needed to put some distance between them. He moved to his right, without looking, and tripped over his school bag.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake!" Snape reacted in a split second, reaching out and stopping the inevitable fall by pulling Cedric away from the desk and into his own arms before the distracted Hufflepuff could do any real damage.

Cedric was panting, his fingers gripping the front of smooth black robes.

"What precisely is wrong with you today, Mr Diggory? You remind me of Neville Longbottom, and that is _not_ a compliment," Snape said, but his voice was not quite cold and not quite steady. And it was rather too close.

Cedric raised his eyes and met his teacher's. Severus Snape was one of very few people who actually stood eye level with Cedric. And one black eye was veiled ever so slightly by a strand of inky black hair. It was Cedric's undoing. With a whimper, he raised his hand to brush the errant lock back from Snape's face.

Snape gasped sharply when long, slender fingers grazed his temple and then tucked his hair behind his ear. It was such an unexpected gesture, he could hardly be blamed for forgetting that his arms were still around Diggory's slender form. And then the outrageous boy lifted his left hand as well and stroked both through his hair. Hogwart's Potions Master - however cold and distant he might seem - did possess a pulse, nerve endings, and eyes to see the ridiculously adoring, guileless gaze directed at him. So he did the only thing he could do with such a strangely emboldened Cedric Diggory - he leaned in and captured his voluptuous mouth with his own.

Cedric's eyes flickered shut, and he moaned softly. And when the arms around him tightened further to draw him against the professor's black-clad, batlike form, he could not believe his luck to be drowning in so much darkness. Blackness seeped through his fingers like a river, and when the hands tracing his spine moved to his hips to crush them to Snape's, Cedric's groan was so loud and unrestrained, it shocked them both.

Snape pulled back with a look of alarm.

Cedric blinked at him and opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out.

Snape shook his head. It was then that he became aware of the merrily bubbling, forgotten cauldron and the scent of overheated cinnamon positively saturating the room. He swore under his breath and flicked his wand at the once again spoiled potion to banish it.

Cedric silently awaited his punishment.

"Leave, Mr Diggory," Snape said in a low, urgent voice.

"Sir, I really am sorry!"

Snape looked at him. Hard. "Leave. While I still let you." There was a flicker of heat in his black eyes.

Cedric gulped. He hurriedly picked up his school bag, ran the back of his hand over his forehead, and with one last look back at Snape, fled the classroom and dungeons.

* * *

During the holidays, Cedric's parents asked him whether he had found himself a nice girl yet. He flushed and stammered about liking someone, and his father slapped his back and told him to make a move lest people began to think he might be a tad queer. Cedric frowned and nodded reluctantly.

When he returned to school, he began to look for a girl his parents might like. It was inevitable that Cho Chang caught his eye. When he approached her and asked her to accompany him to Hogsmeade one Saturday, she was only too happy to agree. They had spent several Saturdays together before Cho asked him if he would like to kiss her. It hadn't occurred to him, but by the way she looked at him, expectant and with her eyes shining excitedly, he thought it was probably bad form not to.

His eyes were closed tight when he kissed her, and his hands were twisted in the long strands of her black hair. He thought about Roger Davies and Severus Snape, but the cloyingly sweet taste of pumpkin pasties on her lips kept distracting him. Cho didn't seem to notice anything wrong.

* * *

The following week brought the Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

No one was more surprised than Cedric when he found himself holding the snitch at the end of it. Had it not been for the incident with the dementors, he would have been nowhere near the faint and uninteresting glint of gold. It was the glint of raven black which had caught his attention and held it throughout the game. And he was only able to smile about the rare Hufflepuff victory once he'd been assured that Harry Potter was indeed well and recovering nicely in the hospital wing.

Just to be sure, Cedric peered in later that night while Potter was already asleep. He walked silently right up to the bed, sighing deeply at the black hair fanned out over a stark white pillow. He debated the ethics of it all for a moment, but then his fingers betrayed him and shakily brushed a bang of black hair from a clammy forehead.

Harry Potter sighed in his sleep, and Cedric withdrew his hand quickly, raising it up to his chest and cradling it there. Potter's hair was utterly beautiful, but Cedric couldn't help but notice the smoothness of his skin, the sensitive curve of his soft pink lips, and the way his fingers were twisted in the sheet and holding the side of his pillow. Cedric gasped softly at the perfection of him.

Potter shifted, and then his eyes opened.

Cedric took a small step back. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," he quickly muttered. "Are you okay? I just wanted to make sure."

Harry blinked at him. "Oh. Um… Diggory?" He raised himself to his elbows and the blue and white pyjama top stretched over his chest. "I'm fine. Thanks."

Cedric flushed. "Oh. Well, that's good. Sorry. I'll go." He turned on his heel and all but ran from the hospital wing.

The only thing Cedric noticed from that day on was Harry Potter. And the only things he dreamed of all summer were messy black hair, shining green eyes with a constant touch of sadness, and softly smiling lips which tasted like strawberries - at least in Cedric's dreams. Dreams which were a riot of colours.

Cedric was so busy dreaming away the holidays, he forgot to get excited about the Quidditch World Cup. Until he found himself standing in front of Harry - shining like a beacon in a crowd of luminous Weasleys which looked positively bland by comparison. Cedric saw nothing but Harry.

And when Harry, sitting on the top of a cliff, disoriented from his first portkey trip, looked up at Cedric as if waiting for his hand, what could Cedric do but offer it?

* * *

After the summer holidays came the Triwizard Tournament and the day when Harry took him aside to tell him about the dragons. It was in the courtyard where Roger had kissed him, and Harry's eyes were as green as Professor Snape's house colours. And even though the sunlight made Harry's hair look dark brown rather than black, Cedric knew he was blushing more furiously than Cho had done offering that sticky kiss.

The Yule Ball required Cedric to have a date. He knew he was expected to ask a girl, so he took Cho. He tried very hard not to spend the whole evening looking at Harry, or to notice Harry looking back at him. He was glad when it was over and he could flee to his curtained bed and dream of doing more than looking and of Harry saying things like 'Oh, please' and sighing his name over and over and over.

Perhaps that was why he went and made a complete fool of himself.

Telling Harry about the Prefect's Bathroom, Cedric stammered and blushed his way through the whole convoluted suggestion. In the end, and judging from Harry's dumbstruck expression, he knew he had all but propositioned the younger boy. He turned and walked away as quickly as he could, hoping to be struck down before he would have to face Harry again.

As a prefect, one of Cedric's duties was to patrol the corridors at night when he was on duty. As it happened, it was his turn that night. And when he found himself outside the Prefect's Bathroom, having no idea how he had got there, he thought he deserved some credit for not going in to see if Harry was following his advice.

It was at that moment that Harry exited the bathroom dressed in nothing but a long, black and silver striped bathrobe and sandals. He was carrying the golden egg. They stared at each other for an unreasonable length of time.

Finally, Harry broke the silence in a soft, careful voice. "Cedric. Did you… Did you come to see me?"

Considering that strictly speaking, it had been Cedric's turn to patrol the _dungeons_ that night - something which had slipped his mind until that moment - what could he do but nod.

"Oh." Harry blinked.

Cedric stared at him. The darkness of Harry's damp, messy hair was the brightest thing in sight. He ached to touch Harry's starless universe.

Harry took a step towards him. "I was wondering…"

Cedric's hands grew clammy, and he twisted them in his robes to stop himself from reaching out. "Yes?" he breathed.

Harry swallowed. "I thought that… When you told me to come here, I… I've been… Because ever since last year, I…" He flushed pink and his voice sounded choked. "I'm sorry. I'm making a prat of myself."

He turned to flee, but Cedric reached out and gripped his arm tightly. The egg dropped to the floor with a soft thump on thick carpet.

"Don't go." Cedric licked his dry lips, his eyes beseeching.

Harry gazed up at him softly. "No." He smiled. "I won't."

A sudden noise jolted them both. Then they heard the screech of an angry cat, followed by Filch's muttering. The whole commotion was happening no more than a corridor or two away. Cedric frantically looked around for a hiding place. Harry smiled and picked up his egg. He reached for Cedric's hand and drew him back inside the Prefect's Bathroom.

The room was hot and damp and dark except for the moonlight filtering through the stained glass. A mosaic of blue, gold and bronze shapes danced across the floor and the surfaces of the steamed up mirrors and the still draining water in the tub. They didn't turn on the lights.

"Quick thinking," Cedric said huskily, embarrassed that his own mental capacities had deserted him. But after all, Harry was still holding his hand.

Harry laughed softly. He was leaning back against the door and looking up at Cedric with sparkling eyes and flushed skin. And his lips were… Cedric couldn't take his eyes off them. He had to know if they tasted like they did in his dreams, and there was only one way to find out. The last burble of Harry's laughter died in Cedric's throat.

The egg once again tumbled to the floor, forgotten. By the time it had rolled across the tiles and splashed into the still half full bath, Harry was standing on his sandal-clad toes, holding onto Cedric's shoulders for dear life. Long fingers were digging into his waist through thick, damp cotton. Somewhere in the background, the beautiful but garbled song of the merpeople sounded from the egg split open under the draining water.

Harry opened his mouth and Cedric invaded it, his tongue exploring soft, pink wetness and lapping up every nuance of Harry's taste until he was dizzy with him and his legs grew weak. He went down to his knees with Harry in his arms and straddling his thighs. The bathrobe fell away from Quidditch-toned legs clamped around him, and Harry was moaning into Cedric's mouth. The sound trickled through Cedric like his own blood. And he inhaled Harry's breath as if it was his own, letting it pearl over his tongue as he withdrew it. He kissed Harry's flushed cheek and then the soft curve of his throat as he tipped back his head. The scent of vanilla soap and excitement flared his nostrils and his tongue lapped at the vulnerable pulse point at the base of Harry's neck until they were both shaking all over, clutching at one another to stay anchored.

When the sensations overwhelmed Harry, he pressed his face against Cedric's neck with a whimper, and Cedric's fingers slid into the softest, silkiest hair he had ever felt, still slightly damp from Harry's bath. And he knew he loved Harry's voice and scent and little moans, and his sparkling eyes and strawberry lips, just as much as his raven hair. He would never need anything but Harry, because Harry was a universe full of stars, and that was so much better than an empty one.

It was then that Cedric knew why black hair alone had never been enough. It was merely a signpost for him to finally find that unique, wonderful gift labelled 'Cedric's', just waiting for him to find it. He had to tell Harry. They both had a right to know. "You're my destiny," Cedric whispered, in equal parts awed and amused by his discovery.

Harry giggled, but his eyes were tender. "Am I?"

Cedric stroked his cheeks, his shoulders, and down his arms until he held Harry's hands in the minute space between them. Nothing had ever felt so right, and he looked down at their joined hands on black cotton with a soft smile. "You're the only person I'll ever love." He raised his eyes to Harry's. "Do you mind?"

Harry shook his head. "Promise?" he breathed.

"I promise," Cedric said without hesitation, and then sealed it with a kiss. He had never broken a single promise in his life.

 

THE END


End file.
